The mutualist movement of the industrial era took root in the Iberian Peninsula and Europe, but also in Latin America, from midway through the XIX century. The Spanish Associations Act of 1887 treated the benefit and mutual, or friendly societies as one more method of association. The first three decades of the XX century witnessed astonishing growth in popular mutual societies. In 1941 the first Spanish Mutual Societies Act was drawn up, based on the Catalan Republic Act of 1934. In 1942 the first public sickness insurance company was founded, which excluded self-employed workers. The welfare mutual companies are the clearest predecessors of the state social security service included in the modern welfare state, whose recent crisis has returned to the mutual societies part of their primitive function. Welfare mutualism and mutual insurance companies over time have developed values such as equity, honesty, solidarity, transparency and equality among their members.